Last week, DHS finalized its $16.7 million purchase of 6,650 pairs of electric shock gloves from the Kentucky-based company Compliant Technologies. That comes out to about $2,400 per pair, plus some accessories like glove fresheners in case the ICE agents wearing these direct contact electroshock weapons get sweaty.

Almost as quickly as the contract was finalized, pushback reached the legislative branch in a classic Congressional form: a whole bunch of open letters. A group of Senators wrote to interim ICE director David Venturella on August 27, asking him whether there will be any tracking of how these gloves are used. Members of the House Committee on Homeland Security wrote a similar letter August 31. And on that same day, a group of 49 Democratic members of Congress led by Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin demanding that he cancel the shock gloves contract.

“The decision to equip civil immigration enforcement agents with electric shock gloves continues a deeply disturbing escalation in the militarization of DHS — as well as........

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